We aim to give you the highest quality reporting and most interesting commentary. That's why the Beacon has added some new features.

Here at the Beacon, we aim to provide you with the highest quality reporting and the most engaging comment and analysis. This begins with our own staff's work. It continues by guiding you to interesting work by others. We've just added two new features to help accomplish this.

First, our World page now includes links to recent reporting funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The Center is one of the new non-profit organizations, like the Beacon, that have formed to provide thoughtful, in-depth coverage with the highest journalistic standards. The Center supports international reporting on topics that are under-reported, mis-reported or not reported at all.

You may recognize the name of the Center's founder, Jon Sawyer, who was Washington Bureau Chief of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for many years and a deft foreign reporter. The Center's work has included an award winning series on workplace hazards in China and extensive coverage of HIV-AIDS in the Caribbean.

A second new venture at the Beacon is a partnership with Helium.com to solicit essays on topics of interest to our readers. Helium hosts an online network of writers from around the world. We post a topic and writers compete to have their work selected for publication by the Beacon. Our first query asked how people were coping with high gas prices. A farmer wrote the winning essay, which appears on our homepage and in our Voices section. Our second query asks about new uses for the Arch grounds. If you're interested in writing on this topic, visit Helium.com for details.

If you're familiar with the Beacon, you've already seen the primary way we connect you to interesting work by others. That's what our Editors' Picks boxes are for. Items in each box provide a summary of stories we think you might find particularly useful and memorable. You can click on the link to read the whole piece. You can click on the tabs at the top and bottom of the boxes to get picks on different topics.

By reading the Editors' Picks, you'll get a good take on big news of the day. You'll also find some unusual sources and distinctive work that you might not otherwise run across.

Average user rating